


Touch me

by PerriewinkleNerdie



Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27332302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PerriewinkleNerdie/pseuds/PerriewinkleNerdie
Summary: Chapter 19 rewrite. For Ethan and Claire, the thought of never touching each other again seems impossible.
Relationships: Ethan Ramsey/Main Character (Open Heart)
Kudos: 11





	Touch me

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Are we all okay? I'm disappointed with PB for throwing progress out the window. It just won't do, ya hoes. So, here is what I thought these scenes should have looked like.  
> Enjoy! <3

Baz’s vision blurred as he watched Leland and Caroline leave, the weight of their situation too heavy for him to move on from. In his lack of focus, he completely failed to notice the change in the atmosphere that was pushed even further with his next words.

“Can you even imagine? Never being able to touch the person you care about most in the world?” he wiped his cheeks, his voice a bit shaky when he talked. “Could there be anything worse?”

Ethan’s eyes shifted to Claire without him even thinking about doing it. The whole ordeal brought back the memories of the night he spent by her side while she was fighting to stay alive. He’s experienced not being able to touch the person he cared about. The time they both spent in the isolation room, a thick layer of plastic between them with every touch they shared. Touching, yes, but not feeling anything; not the softness of her skin, not the warmth of her body.

It seemed as though Claire was thinking of the exact same night in their lives. Her gaze found his almost instantly, prompted by Baz’s words. Having experienced it, at least to some extent, she found herself feeling even worse for the married couple.

“It’s horrible. I don’t even want to think about it.” a shiver ran through her, making her whole body shake at an unpleasant feeling. Ethan followed his first instinct, reaching for her hand with his, letting their fingers brush against each other. She reciprocated the gesture, hooking her ring finger with his and giving it a firm squeeze. With a heavy sigh, she continued. “Every time I imagine it, it feels like my heart is breaking again.”

Ethan blinked a couple of times, trying to clear his head. His old self would have said something about how the couple would get through this. People went through worse things, after all. But this new version of Ethan Ramsey, the one that fell for the woman standing next to him, the one that almost lost the said woman before he could even let her know that he cared about her, couldn’t bring himself to say that. Because yes, people did get through situations like these or worse. But they shouldn’t have to.

“It’s a terrible thing.” He started, looking at Claire as he said it. “Touch is such a vital part of creating emotional connections between people. To live with someone for years and then suddenly not be able to even touch their hand…”

“No one should have to adapt to that. I...” Baz nodded his head in agreement, his face falling even more. “I think I need to find Zaid and give him a big hug. I’ll see you both later.”

As Baz disappeared behind the corner, the shy touch of their fingers turned into the bolder, proper hand hold. Ethan couldn’t pinpoint what was it exactly that he was feeling, but there was a sense of a certain urgency in the way his thumb grazed hers. The warmth of her skin passed onto him, making him feel feverish.

Claire turned towards him, taking his other hand into hers delicately. The world as they knew it was about to fall down in a few hours, with the hospital closing and neither of them having any plans clarified. And yet, standing in the middle of the hall, holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes, there was nothing else for them to care about.

A quiet sound of her phone burst the bubble they were in, reminding them that there was still a thing or two to be done before they left the hospital for the last time. She smiled at him, blinking slowly, then rose onto the tips of her toes and pressed her lips to his cheek tenderly.

He missed her touch the moment they let go of each other’s hands.

~~

Thirty minutes later, Ethan walked into the diagnostic team’s office for the second to last time. Caroline’s patient file had to get sorted and put away, and after that, there were a few patients he had to discharge.

The office, as it turned out, wasn’t empty. Leaning over the desk and scribbling something in the file was Claire, her hair out of her ponytail, creating a curtain around her face. She greeted him with a hum, not looking up from her work just yet.

Since he last saw her, he tried and succeeded at diagnosing his own condition. Come to think of it, he’s been battling it ever since the night of the attack. This need to hold onto her in any way the situation allowed. This urge to feel her skin against his. This starvation for any form of contact with her.

He hasn’t felt the need for anything or anyone quite like this before. All his life, he saw himself as an independent man that didn’t require anyone to succeed. He still didn’t, but he didn’t want to be alone anymore. He felt a strong pull towards her, like they were two magnets with opposite charges, and they couldn’t help but be drawn together. Like there was no way he could stay away from her now, even if he tried.

Ethan took a few quiet steps, cautious to not make too much noise. He looked at what she was doing, resting his chin against her shoulder, his arms wrapping around her middle and pulling her flush against his body. Claire hummed again, turning her head to nuzzle her nose against his.

“I see you already took care of the paperwork.” He muttered, breathing in the scent of her perfume. She placed her signature at the bottom of the page, then clicked her pen and tossed it onto the desk.

“I know you hate doing it, so I did it for you.”

“That’s the most attractive thing you’ve ever said to me.” he growled playfully, biting her shoulder. She giggled, leaning back into his embrace.

“If I knew that’s all it took, I would have been doing your paperwork a long time ago.”

They remained that way for a long moment, giddy and light despite the circumstances. They were always heavy on witty banter, but since their relationship became more serious, this bright tone bled into their conversations more and more often, especially when they were alone.

Eventually, she twisted out of his hold with a squeeze of his hands, grinning as she walked backwards. “Discharge the last patients and meet you here in a few?”

Ethan nodded his head in answer to her question, watching her go and immediately feeling like he wanted to follow her.

~~

Having discharged his last patient, he walked to the elevator, heading to his office. He pressed the button and took a step towards the wall as he entered, waiting for the doors to close. A distant shout attracted his attention, causing him to stall the elevator just enough to allow Claire to catch up and join him in the confined space.

“Thanks.” She panted, trying to catch her breath after running a marathon down the hall. He fought the smirk, pressing his hand to his face briefly. Claire fell against the wall, her shoulders moving slower and slower as her lungs returned to their normal pace of work. “It’s a miracle I didn’t trip.” Her words triggered a fit of laughter from him, unable to resist it anymore. “Don’t laugh at me, Ramsey, we both know how much of a possibility that was.”

She swatted his arm with her palm cheekily but failed to retreat it fast enough. Ethan’s hand wrapped around her and held her in place. His gaze fell onto their joined hands, then slowly trailed to meet her eyes. The air around them cracked with electricity, atmosphere getting thicker with each passing second.

His hand reached forward, blindly searching for the control pad. Looking away from her for just a second, he found the emergency stop button and pressed it, both of them feeling the elevator halt almost immediately.

The papers he was holding got thrown onto the floor in a flash. His now unoccupied hands were free to grab her by any place he could reach. With a low growl, he pressed his lips to hers, keeping her as close to him as humanly possible with his fingers curling into her hair.

A surprised gasp slipped from her in between the kisses, the intensity of the entirety of Ethan’s being pushing the air out of her lungs. Without any precision at all, she grazed the fabric of his shirt with her hands on their journey up his body, only to finally grip the collars and pull him down to allow herself more comfort than her current position provided.

Ethan’s hands left her hair, traveling everywhere and being nowhere at the same time. He took handfuls of her white coat, creasing the fabric as he pushed it aside. With wild abandonment, he traced the lines of her body, squeezing her bottom teasingly and grinning when her lips left his for a stunned moment.

Going further, he raised the material of her sweater upwards, exposing the skin of her back to the cool air of the elevator. His hands felt like red hot metal in contrast, sending feverish shivers through her body with each brush, squeeze and pull of his fingers.

He whispered her name, sounding like the highest praise in the utterly silent confinement of the elevator. He touched her like a starved man, unable to press her hard enough to him, pull her close enough. All the small gestures of affection he gave her that day cumulated into an enormous expression of longing and want that they were experiencing right now.

Claire’s fingers slowly let go of the fabric she was gripping tightly, blindly reaching for the buttons of his shirt. Undoing the first one, then the second one, she exposed the patch of his skin around that area, pushing the material to the side.

Reaching for one of his hands, both of which were still pressing against the skin of her back under her sweater, she brought it to her front and upwards. Brushing over the lace of her bra, she pushed their joined hands even further up, until she reached the location she had in mind. Breaking the kiss, she leaned back to look into his eyes when she pressed his hand to her chest, right where her racing heart was, mirroring the gesture with her other hand on his torso.

Time stopped. The intensity dropped to a tiny simmer of lust, accompanied by a roar of affection and desire to feel each other’s touch. Their eyes met, green on blue, grounding themselves in the only thing that they could consider being stable in their lives: each other.

As their breaths evened and their hearts slowed down, Ethan cupped the side of her face delicately, smiling down at her pensively, memories of the horrid night at the hospital tormenting his mind.

“I can’t imagine never touching you again.” he muttered, his eyes shining with vulnerability. He traced the line of her spine, then pressed his palm between her shoulder blades, bringing her into a warm embrace. Her lips pressed against his neck, muffling her words.

“Let’s hope neither of us has to experience it. _Ever again_.” a shiver wrecked through her body at the mere thought of the trauma that followed her around to this day. It slowly became easier to cope with what she’s been through, but it would be a long time until she would be able to say that it’s behind her.

Ethan noticed the change in her posture, searching for her eyes urgently. They would tell him without a shadow of a doubt just how she was feeling. The nightmares she still had were clearly in the back of her mind, but the light was beginning to overwhelm the darkness.

“Are you okay?” he asked, returning his hand to her face and running his thumb over her cheekbone softly. Concern colored his voice, caring about her always being on the forefront of his mind and intentions. Claire stood on her tiptoes, brushing their lips together sweetly.

“I am now.”

Pressing the button again, they let the elevator carry them to the seventh floor. They gathered their things and stopped in the threshold of the office, looking over it for the last time before turning the lights off. Smiling somberly, they made their way towards the entrance.

Standing together in the middle of the atrium, they watched as the last patient left the hospital. It felt like an era was coming to an end, something monumental and groundbreaking. Ethan reached for her hand, tangling their fingers.

“I’m not ready to go yet.” Claire muttered, looking around the grand room they were in. As the last light died, the shadows became more pronounced, the space feeling bigger and scarier. Ethan hummed, sighing heavily.

“I’m not ready to go either. It’s eleven years of my life, ending like someone cut it off with a knife.” Looking away from the windows, he focused his eyes on her again. “What are you going to miss the most?”

“You.” she responded without a moment of hesitation, both of them giggling like a pair of fools a second later.

“Likewise, Claire.”

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her into his arms for a tight hug. Pressing his lips to her forehead, he let his mind wander towards the future. The only thing he could see clearly was her. Smiling at him from her place on his couch. Smirking over her shoulder under the hot spray of water in his shower. Sighing his name as she straddled him in his bed. _Their_ bed.

“We’re going to be okay.” Ethan reassured them both, and then they left the hospital for the last time. Together.


End file.
